


marry, i will teach you

by anxiousAnarchist



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen, Suicide, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 11:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/609156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousAnarchist/pseuds/anxiousAnarchist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ophelia did take her lessons from the best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	marry, i will teach you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyairy (Aeriel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aeriel/gifts).



> For the prompt "What I'd like most of all from this prompt is to see Ophelia making some kind of choice. So many retellings and stagings make her into a passive character- I would really like to see her portrayed as Hamlet's equal in intelligence. If you would rather do this in an AU form, that's fine, but please don't make her later insanity a deception of any kind, because lord knows she has full reason to go off the rails, particularly as an intelligent person. I'm also interested in her relationships with her family as well as the royals, so put your focus wherever inspiration takes you." 
> 
> Not the assignment I received, but something extra I hope will be ok!

When Laertes speaks of Hamlet, your heart sinks. Your father's found a new part for you, something beyond the bit role of daughter-sister. You wonder what he wrote to your brother, to make him so certain that you followed Hamlet about like a lovelorn thing. 

He's leaving, his departure giving him some small stay of grace, and you want to beg him to let you join him, let you escape from this constant scrutiny for as long as you can. But too late, he's gone, he won't come back. 

Polonius' eyes gleam when you mention Hamlet. He looks less like your father, more like a spirit, a ghost. Hoary bearded and smelling of sharp ambition. Somewhere else, in a few hours, Hamlet will act out this same scene. 

"He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affection to me." 

He laughs, and pats your hair. An infantilizing gesture, but that's what you are now. A girl struck dumb by a few lines of poetry. 

No matter. You'll wear it with a difference. 

 

\---

Horatio helps you to write the remembrances, stays up late at night, jotting down something approximating what your dear friend and lord would say. You yawn and lean against him in the library, think of times when you and he and Hamlet would bundle up together in the drafty library of Elsinore. Dirty sonnets made Hamlet laugh, Horatio liked the Roman historians best. They would take turns reading aloud to you, Hamlet acting out the most dramatic bits. One dull winter evening, he taught you how to convincingly pretend to cry. Another, how to fake a punch and fall without hurting yourself. 

Horatio shows you one of the letters, and you giggle. "Most beauteous and fair? That's a vile phrase."

Horatio shrugs. "He never was much good at poetry, I'm afraid." 

The handwriting's convincing, even if the sentiments are not. 

\---

You will never forget the way your father pushes you in front of their majesties, presents you like a cat does a caught mouse. The queen grips your hand tightly for a moment. The rings she wears on every finger press cold into your flesh. 

Polonius guides your arm, he moves your hand for you. Here, now, you must pick up the letters thusly. You must set them aside like this. We will be here watching, here you must turn. You mustn't let him guess where we are, so look away don't draw his eyes there. Find your light. 

\-- 

You are the consummate professional, when it comes to acting. Enter Stage Left, present the forgeries to the half-wreck of the man you once knew. "My Lord, I have some remembrances of yours that I have long wished to deliver." 

Hamlet's eyes dark about, he turns the packet of letters over and over in his hands. "I never gave you aught?" he says, and it's more question than statement. 

You cover his hands with your own. "My lord," you say, slow and clear and he's a smart man he'll figure out what's going on. "You know right well you did." 

He catches your eyes, and you nod so slightly that no one watching should be able to see. 

"I did love you once," he says, and it's perfect. Just the right note of sincerity, his voice wavering a bit, something like tears welling up in his eyes and you love him for it, if not in the way your father would like. 

"Yes, my lord, you led me to believe so." 

You let him drag you around the room, push you to the ground and scatter all the artful parchment lies. Tears stream down your face. A few of them might even be real. 

Hamlet bends down, presses his forehead against yours. "Get thee to a nunnery," he whispers. Here is a truth buried in your elaborate fictions, the chaste kiss you share. "Go." 

\---

After that, the play is almost a relief. You have no counterpart in it, for once you are all your own. 

Horatio shoots you a worried glance when Hamlet lays his head in your lap, but you don't mind as much as a lady -- the daughter of a lord, at least -- should. These are your real remembrances, his wink at you and the soft swipe of your hand through his hair. Hamlet feels feverish, the very air is choleric and thick with anticipation. 

The light in Hamlet's eyes when he sees the king start out of his chair makes him look new again, if more ruddy and vicious. In a second the light's gone, and he's at his business again, making fools of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Not that that's a very hard task. 

Ten minutes after he nods at you as he leaves the room, he'll stab your father and watch him bleed dry. 

 

\---

Your brother's face when he sees you bedraggled and sleepless breaks you in a way your father's death never could. He is your last anchor but his eyes are saying that you've been lost already. Lost at sea, lost in sin, lost in scene. 

At some point, even the greatest actress can't stay in character. Your director is dead (his blood on your hands lord in heaven if you had just done better, just tried harder, been sweeter or fairer or more convincing, could you have saved him?) Hamlet is dead to you and Horatio grows dim, the whole court does, and what is Ophelia, after all is said and done? 

A white dress. A blank slate. Handful of flowers and old lauds, the only lines left to you. Four words to bring down a prince: "pray you, love, remember." 

And oh, lord, you know what you are, but you know not what you might be. 

The last stage direction is penciled in in your own watery hand. Exit Ophelia, stage down. The water stings your feet, mirror-cold, cold as Gertrude's rings. You can see her watching you from your vantage point, a hand clutching at her chest. The queen's face is contorted as if she is about to cry out or faint and even now, with your head dizzy with the blood on your hands and on the floor, this brings a smile. Wonderful girl, who can so astound a lady. 

You curtsey before you drop. She'll follow you, by and by.


End file.
